Hong Kong Slump
Damps Rugby Event

By

Christina Mungan Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated March 11, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

HONG KONG -- Asia's second-biggest annual sports event, the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, is likely to see an 8% drop in ticket sales this year from a peak in 1997 due to the current recession, according to David Roberts, the commercial director of the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union.

Yet corporate sponsorship of the event, the largest annual sports event in Asia after the Japan Grand Prix Formula 1 car race, has crept up to a record high,...